August 16, 2013 12:06am EDTAugust 15, 2013 8:18pm EDTMichael Vick or Nick Foles? Chip Kelly isn't saying. The Eagles coach has much to ponder after watching his QB candidates move the ball, only to give it up at bad times. SN's David Steele breaks down Round 2 of the competition.

Two games in, the Philadelphia Eagles’ quarterback competition is everything it was cracked up to be. So is Chip Kelly’s offense. How he’ll make his decision for the season opener is anybody’s guess.

For better and worse, there is almost nothing separating Michael Vick and Nick Foles so far, not after Thursday night’s 14-9 victory over the Carolina Panthers at Philly’s Lincoln Financial Field. Foles got the start and the first two possessions, Vick the next three drives (including one squeezed in at the end of the first half).

As good as they looked a week earlier against the New England Patriots, when the roles were more or less reversed, they looked as good this week. Even the concerns that arose were similar. For their brilliance and mastery of the super-speed tempo, they still combined for just 14 points and committed more turnovers than Kelly could possibly be comfortable with.

Kelly had insisted that nothing be read into who started the exhibitions, when each quarterback played or in what sequence they played. Against the Patriots, he veered from his stated plan of alternating the two; on Thursday, he stuck to a pattern: both played with mostly starters, and they stayed on the field for consecutive possessions.

The results settled nothing. “You can put your pens down if you think we’re naming a starting quarterback right now,” Kelly told reporters after the game.

Overall, it was hard to discount what the two produced.

The Eagles gained 257 yards, 154 in the air and 103 on the ground, and 17 first downs on 35 first-half plays—executed in a crisp 14:18 of possession, a gasp-inducing pace (for both teams). That’s 7.3 yards per snap.

Foles was 6-for-8 for 53 yards, and ran twice for 13 yards and the Eagles’ first touchdown. Vick completed the first nine passes he threw until a Hail Mary was intercepted as time expired, gaining 105 yards. He also ran twice for 20 yards, on back-to-back plays to set up the touchdown on his watch, LeSean McCoy’s 1-yarder.

But in their five drives, Foles and Vick produced three turnovers—the first, by Foles, the biggest smudge on either quarterback’s record.

The interception he threw on the Eagles’ first possession wasn’t the object of ridicule that Jets QB Mark Sanchez’s was against the Detroit Lions a week earlier, but it did ruin a drive from their own 5-yard line to the Panthers’ 8.

Bobbling the shotgun snap, he wound up with two rushers in his face, heaved the ball into the back of the end zone toward two defenders while being held onto, and was easily picked off.

Before that, Foles had completed six straight passes on the drive, to four different receivers, converting on third down twice. McCoy, who sat out last week’s opener, was sharp, as was his backup Chris Polk.

The turnover under Vick was on his first possession, a Polk fumble when the Eagles had again reached Panthers’ territory, at their 36. Vick had been 4-for-4 and had moved the Eagles from their 20. On his second possession, he was 5-for-5 passing, and his arm and legs were responsible for 70 of the Eagles’ 74 yards on their touchdown drive.

If Vick seemed to come out of the New England game as a slight favorite, he did nothing to hurt himself—but Foles did little to hurt himself, either. His ability and willingness to run helped his cause. The terrible decision on the interception probably didn’t.

Only Kelly likely knows how much any of it counts—and, in fact, how everything in both training camp and the first two games will be evaluated when he makes his decision.

It will be interesting to see who Kelly picks to start the vital third exhibition next Saturday in Jacksonville. It will be just as interesting to see whether it indicates anything about who will start in the Monday night opener in Washington.